I've got a question that has been bugging me for a long time now - Where the heck are the games featuring dinosaurs? Dinosaurs are pretty much the biggest and best things to ever walk this earth, but they have been woefully under appreciated in videogames. And even when they actually manage to make an appearance, they don't usually even get to be the star.Turok and King Kong have some of the best dinosaur action around, but aren't nearly as good as they could have been because the games feature other enemies more often than the dinos. Seriously, King Kong had some of the most intense sequences that I can remember thanks to the mighty V-Rex, but you spend most of your time fighting centipedes and scorpions. Turok also featured pretty much perfect dinosaurs, but they took a backseat to the goofball story and human soldiers.
My personal favorite dinosaur game is Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis on the Xbox (and is backward compatible on the 360). It is a theme park creator game, but the graphics and sound are really quite good and you can zoom in and out as close as you want to the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs themselves are very well done and have nice animation and a surprising variety to their actions. Just sitting back and watching them is amazingly fun. Definitely check it out.
But my request still goes out. Please, developers, someone make a good game with dinosaurs (and just dinosaurs) in it!
Images © Ubisoft, Konami
Comments
Amen. I wonder this myself, but it has to have something to do with a perceived limited market. Personally I enjoy Turok, but it has obvious flaws. In my opinion a truly great Dinosaur game would be Dinosaurs placed in an open living world.
Think the incredibly diverse landscapes present in Far Cry 2 – developers could easily place dinosaurs with all types of mentality and behavioral traits. Herds, loners, packs, etc…
A game like this, even if they aren’t a part of the central story, would be awesome. Perhaps you would get awards for bringing a big one down, but generally it would just add to the tension and excitement of the game when you aren’t just looking for people in the jungle, but for a Raptor ambush. Or the slight vibrations you feel getting closer as a T-Rex approaches and you try your best to hide…
So much unharvested potential…
Yeah, there’s a definite need for a modern shooter with dinosaurs! Thats a great idea, a Far Cry 2 style environment with a huge animal menace.. There are people working on a Jurassic Park Half-Life (2?) conversion, although I presume it to be strictly non profit… I wonder if Michael Crichton or Universal Studios or whoever would piss their pants over a studio game with a similiar plot.. well, it’d be amazing anyway! That huge area, lots of different huge enlosure’s, many of them linked together.. It could be a journalist investigating rumours of a secret genetics project in South America… what would the purpose of breeding the dinosaurs be though? There was an amazing 2000 AD strip about a TV game show with dinosaur and human combatants.. a government sponsered program to create the ultimate modern spectacle… in the near future but with modern day weapons.. there’s an obvious idea for a sequel too!
Hey! I agree! Jurassic Park Operation Genesis was one of my favourite. I have it on PS2. I now am in love with Assassin’s Creed I and II. I was also trying to search for a XBOX 360 game including Dinosaurs as something you do not kill as a enemy but none are out other than Jurassc Park OG.
Some graphics designers and companies should get their butts together and do something about this!
Theres Jurassic The Hunted. Never played it
JP:OG WAS GREAT. Except my brother cut the wire for my PS2.
There is an awsome dinosaur game coming in 2011. You should check it out it is called primal carnage. You can choose to be on the human side or dinosaur side. On xbox live there will be people on the human side and people on the dinosaur side. If you get lucky you might become the trex.
I have a game under Development which i am developing,(duh) sorry for spelling and the like, i was in a big rush to post it on a forum(extract below)
Hi, i didnt want to post int other games as, effectivly, its dead. so i would liek to tell you guys of a game i am making, it has no offical title, but it is multiplayer nad it consists of humans fighting dinosaurs in a fight(It is much more tactical than Primal Carnage and borrows more from team fortress 2 than that game, not copying)
so far)
The humans have a variety of classes such as:
Assault(can use shotguns, assault rifles and up to medium weight grenade launchers,and squad automattic cannon* i am contemplating wether they will have light machine guns)
*not a LMG but more of a assault rifle mix and LMG mix.
Scout(can use submachine guns and compact shotguns,gns similar to the ranger, sawd off shotguns and even a mini pump action!)
Those are the 2 teaser human classes! i have 7 more planned and will post after 5 replies(genuine ones, and they must be unique replies)
Dinosaurs consist of
T-Rex:this great hulk can destroy buildings like the grenade launcher,and the destruction will be brick by brick(trying to get frostbite, but they wotn hear me out :angry: )
and there will also be herbivores as sort of passive creatures, but the dinos can choose agressive herbivores and hide in the crowd of them!(i hope this makes sense to you guys) for exampel theres 4 ankylosauruses and the player chosoes the ankylasaurus class and they can hide in there, they will not stroll alone, but 2 players togethar can happen and be a good decoy!
the classes get the default weapon, and you buy weapons (the weapons can overlap, for exampel u buy a compact shotgun for scout and assault can use)
and there will be customization for :
sights,barrel,(lengthen,shorten)Ammo,underbarrel(including sling) ,clip, butt, on the barrel,(silencer,muzzle break)
also there will be a special speed/health configuration,
Dinosaurs in games? Ah, The best game with dinos are Turok: Dinosaur’s Hunter, and Torok (Of 2008).
The first is a Nintendo 64 game, but it really has a very good graphic and in my opinion, is better than many other fps, there is the ROM and emulator, quite easy makin’it run run.
The second is a new generation game, with nice story, great main character, amazing dinos-human fights, etc, it just requires 1 Gb of ram, then if you turn some of your virtual memory into RAM, it’s quite better. There is suspence and it’s all amazing.
Ah, in my opinion, Turok 2008 is quite better than Primal Carnage.